Yu-Gi-Oh Nexus
by Grandmaster Immortal
Summary: A young man serving in the US Air Force finds a strange pile of Yu-Gi-Oh cards in a bag of flour. He then ends up on a journey to save the world.


Disclaimer: I do not own anything in the Yu-Gi-Oh universe. All rights belong to Konami and its affiliates and the creator of Yu-Gi-Oh.

It all started at a fair. Not any ordinary fair, but more of an open house that Air Force bases will hold once a year to showcase their abilities. As a simple Airman, it was my job to man one of the stalls at these events. With people walking around everywhere, it could get very chaotic, and many could easily get lost. I was one such person, beget my embarrassment.

While taking a break from my duties, I found myself on a part of base that wasn't part of the festivities. I saw another Airman, carrying a large bowl of batter. It looked quite heavy, so I went over to offer to help carry it. "Hello, Airman Jones, do you need some help?"

"Who are you?" he asked, before noticing the name on my uniform, which was Yuba. "I haven't seen you around base before."

"I work at the auxiliary base to the north," I replied. "I was assigned to assist at the open house."

"Okay," Airman Jones said. "In that case, you can help me carry the bowl to my stall near the Thunderbird Hanger. It is rather heavy."

"So where exactly is the hanger from here? I sort of got lost, since I don't actually work in this part of base."

He sighed, but said, "Follow me."

We both walked to the Thunderbird Hanger, where we saw his stall nearby. It was selling crêpes, which explained what the batter was for.

When we reached the stall, we saw a Staff Sergeant making the crêpes. For some reason, he was speaking in a strange accent, as if he was a Japanese person trying to sound American, even though he didn't look Japanese. "_Hey_, _yooou_, what took you so long?" he demanded of Airman Jones.

"I'm sorry, Sgt. Kid, the batter was - I mean, I was -"

"Don't worry, we still have more batter left," Sgt. Kid interrupted. "Who is _this_ Air-man with you?"

I introduced myself. "I am Airman Yuba, Sgt. Kid. I'm from the auxiliary base up north."

Sgt. Kid gives me a strange look. "Are you _here_ to do the chicken taco stand? Are you one of Sgt. Lyra Williams's troops?"

"Yes, sir, I am. Sgt. Williams is my direct supervisor," I replied.

"Oh, _great!_" Sgt. Kid exclaimed enthusiastically. "Me and Williams are _tomodachi_ \- best friends! So you will help _me_ at my stall!"

"But sir, I have to get back to my stall," I tried to explain.

"No, no, no," he interrupts. "I am of higher rank. You will stay here at my stall." He then took a walkie-talkie off his belt and contacts Sgt. Williams. "Williams, what is going on? I am borrow-_ing_ your Air-man _Ume_!"

"Uh, sir, it's pronounced 'Yuba'," I corrected Sgt. Kid, but he just ignored me.

Through the walkie-talkie, Sgt. Williams's voice said, "All right, but don't break the boy. We need him for work tomorrow."

Sgt. Kid looked at me with a smile and said, "Well, you heard the _lady_. Now you work with _me_!"

My long, arduous work at the crêpe stand began. Not too long after that, I found a sack of flour that felt heavier than the five pounds it was supposed to be. Out of curiosity, I found cards mixed with the flour. Upon closer examination, they proved to be Yu-Gi-Oh cards, but ones I'd never seen before.

"Sgt. Kid, there are these strange cards in the flour," I said.

Sgt. Kid turned to look at me. He gasped suspiciously. "Oh no! Where could this have come _from_? Air-man _Ume_ and Airman Jones, I need you to get rid of the bag of flour. That is unsanitary. Very dirty."

I tried to correct his pronunciation of my name again, but he still ignored me, as if he wass doing it on purpose. With a sigh, I bent over to pick up the bag, and Airman Jones grabed the other side. The two of us headed for the dumpster.

As we walked, I asked, "Airman Jones, do you play Yu-Gi-Oh?"

He made a scoffing noise and asked in return, "Who would play a silly children's game? Magic: The Gathering is the game for me."

"Do you think Sgt. Kid would mind if I kept the cards in the bag?" I asked.

"I don't think it would matter. We are throwing them out. If you want to dig through a bunch of flour just to get a few children's cards, that's fine with me. Just don't take too long."

Of course, I am rather annoyed that he called Yu-Gi-Oh a 'silly children's game', but I decided to look past that. We put down the bag and in about ten minutes, I had sifted through the bag and retrieved all the cards inside. Even though it looked like at first there were only five or six, I ended up finding a hundred eighty cards. Most of them I couldn't read due to the flour still on them, but they all looked pretty old, like from when the cards first came out.

Airman Jones threw out the bag of flour and I put the cards in my backpack. The two of us returned to the stall and continued working for the rest of the afternoon, until the open house ended for the day.

Once I got back to my dorm room, I began to clean off and examine the cards. They were ones that I'd never seen or heard of before. They were all printed in English, with the text in the same format as the modern cards, but the art was the same style as the older ones.

_P-power? P-force? P-defense? P-Life? What does this all mean?_ I wondered to myself. _These look like archetype names, but none that I've heard off before_. I immediately turned on my laptop and began doing a search on the cards. There was nothing, not even the slightest hint, online.

However, none of the cards looked fake, other than the art style, which was like the art from the Legend of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon pack, and format, which was from modern-day sets, not matching up, but didn't mean anything, to me at least. I tried to do some more research, but was interrupted by my IM pinging me. The username was one I had never seen before.

I decided to read the message. The person messaging me asked "Did you get the cards?"

This seemed odd. Other than Airman Jones, nobody else even knew that I had taken the cards, and he obviously had interest in them. I decided to respond. "Who are you?" I typed.

"A friend," was the response a few seconds later.

I wondered how this person could be a friend, since I knew the usernames of all of mine. "What cards are you talking about?" I typed back.

"Don't play dumb. I know you took the cards out of the bag of flour."

"Wait, is this Airman Jones? Because this isn't funny."

"No, I'm not. I'm a friend."

At this point, I was starting to get annoyed, and a little suspicious. "If you're a friend, what's your name then?"

"My name is irrelevant," was the response. "But your name, Tewodros Yuba, I know."

"Who are you?" I typed angrily.

"The one who will start your destiny." The person logged off right after that.

Rather than stew over it for the rest of the evening, I decided to put the cards away in one of my empty tins and get some shut-eye. There was still one day left of the open house and I had to work at one of the stalls again.

Partway through my sleep, I had a rather odd dream. In it, a strange door imprinted with the face of a dragon appeared before me. Somehow, the dragon began speaking. "You are the one that will save this world."

"What are you talking about?" I asked in the dream.

"To do that, you will need power," said the dragon. "When you open this door, you will attain power, but you will lose everything." With that, a key appeared at my feet. This key didn't look like any ordinary key, however. It was bent and twisted, and appeared to be broken in four parts. "Put the key back together and all will be as it once was." With that, the dragon stopped speaking, no matter how many times I tried to ask for clarification.

I woke up in a cold sweat, and sat up. Glancing at my alarm clock, I saw that it was just a few minutes past six. In a few minutes I would have to get up and get ready for the air show/open house. With a sigh, I got out of bed, and as I did so, a piece of gold, fell off my quilt and onto the floor. It looked like a piece of the key I had seen in my dream.

_What is going on_? I thought to myself, starting to feel freaked out by this.

Three loud knocks suddenly sounded at my door. "Airman Yuba, are you in there?" a voice demanded.

"Yes sir!" I called back, wondering what was going on.

"Open the door!"

I quickly put on my trousers, sticking the gold piece in my pocket, and opened the door. Two men in the uniform of a military policeman were standing there. "Airman Yuba, we need you to come with us," said one of them.

The other glanced down at my feet and added, "After you put on your shoes, that is."

"Is something wrong, sir?" I asked, as I picked up my socks and shoes and put them on.

"Did you notice anything odd taking place during the Air Show yesterday?" the first one asks.

I thought back, but I couldn't remember out of the ordinary, other than the cards in the flour, but that didn't really count. "No sir, not that I can recall," I answered.

"All right then, airman, follow us." The two MPs escort me out of the dormitory.

Just as I stepped out the door, a fellow airman and friend, Airman Chancellor came out of his room, saw us, and exclaimed, "Dude, what did you do?"

I shrugged, and one of the MPs pushed Airman Chancellor back to his room, saying, "None of your business. You saw nothing."

I was taken to the MP truck and driven down to the Command Building. I was sent to a dark room with a screen. An old man wearing the two stars of a Major General was already waiting there. I saluted him once I saw him. He saluted back and ordered me to sit.

"Son, do you know why you're here?" General Westwind asked.

"No sir, I do not," I responded.

"Do you play a game called You-Gay-Oh?" he asked me.

"Yes I do, sir, but it's pronounced 'Yu-Gi-Oh'."

"Whatever, it's still a stupid Jap game," said General Westwind. "Since you do, that cuts out some of the stuff I have to show you. The base server was hacked last night, and the hacker was communicating with you on your computer."

"Okay," I said, feeling and sounding confused.

"Do you have the cards?" General Westwind inquired.

"I have many cards," I replied. "Which ones are you talking about?"

"Never mind, we'll find them eventually."

"Sir, if you don't mind me asking, what is exactly going on here?" I asked.

"Son, there is a matter of national security with those cards."

I couldn't believe my ears. How could a bunch of Yu-Gi-Oh cards be a matter of national security?

A few minutes later, several MPs came in, all carrying my Yu-Gi-Oh tins, which contained my entire collection. "General," one of them said, "we have searched through the boxes and cannot find the cards in question."

The general's face turned red. "Where are the cards, Airman Yuba?" he almost shouted, clearly holding back anger.

"Those are the cards I own sir," I replied politely.

"Son, let me show you something." General Westwind turned around and turned on the screen.

It showed two people playing Yu-Gi-Oh, but they were standing and using duel disks, similar to the ones in the anime. "Sir, what is-"

"Just watch," the general interrupted.

One of the people on the screen had their life points at two thousand, while the other had only one hundred. Both of them looked visibly tired, and the one with fewer points appeared to be injured. The one at two thousand then summoned a illusory monster and attacked the other directly. Keep in mind that this was taking place in live action. I was amazed that apparently we had come up with the technology to do this, but didn't show it.

When the attack hit, and the person's life points went to zero, he collapsed on the ground and looked as if he had fainted, or possibly was dead. A dark mist left his body, and that was when the video ended.

"Son, that happened in New York State, about twenty minutes ago," said General Westwind. "Notifications of similar incidences have been popping up all over the United States. If you do not have the cards we are looking for, then I suggest you observe caution when playing this 'game' of yours."

He then ordered the MPs to return me and my cards back to my room, with the order that I was forbidden to discuss this with anyone, and also that I was excused from work for the day. Once back in my room, I can see that it was ransacked, and my fellow airmen in the dorm are wondering what was going on. I quickly make up a story that someone else reported some of their cards missing and the MPs were checking to see if anyone else could have taken them. Most of the airmen accepted this story, but Airman Chancellor walked up to me once everyone else returned to their rooms and said, "You're a horrible liar, Yuba. I heard one of the MPs say something about your cards before you left, and I went inside your room and grabbed one of your tins before they could return."

"Why did you grab one of the tins?" I asked, puzzled.

Airman Chancellor shrugged. "I just had this feeling..." He went back to his room, then returned with the tin.

As I grabbed the tin, I heard a voice. "Help...me..."

"Did you hear that?" I asked.

Airman Chancellor gave me a funny look. "Hear what? The sound of you grabbing your tin?"

"No, a voice," I said.

"You must be hearing things," he said, giving me another weird look.

I heard the voice again, saying in a louder voice, "Help me." I looked around to find of the source of the voice, but saw nothing.

"Yuba, are you okay?" asked Airman Chancellor in a concerned voice. "Do you need to go down to the hospital? Or did the MPs do something weird to you earlier?"

"No, I'm okay, Austin," I assured him, and entered my room. Though it was messy, I was able to tidy things up. After that, I took out the gold piece and examined it closely. It began to glow as I brought it closer to the tin with the cards I had salvaged yesterday.

I could hear a voice in my head say, over and over, "Duel. Duel. Duel." When I put the key down, the voice then said, "You will make me whole," and after that, my vision became blurry and I became unconscious.


End file.
